A Woman First- First Woman
Page 17
By the time I decided to do something about Tibet, the saintly and beloved Dalai Lama was firmly under China’s thumb, and the Tibetans themselves, once so joyous and carefree, were now very sad indeed and wandered around in a listless funk. Or so I am told.*
When I imposed strict sanctions on China in 2016 in response to their hacking of the White House servers and posting of fake messages on my Twitter account that were intended to embarrass me personally, I intended for them to sting. And sting they clearly did. Lu Chi-Jang immediately began a series of overtures through intermediaries that culminated in an agreement that Tibet would be freed and the Tibetan people given the right of self-determination. Appropriately, the agreement was brokered at Camp David, where several decades before, the Camp David Accords, which reorganized the violence in the Middle East in a whole new way, were signed. Hopefully, these new Camp David Accords will work out a little better than the last ones.
Because of the extreme delicacy of the negotiations, it was not possible to announce the liberation of Tibet right away, and due to some very inopportune timing, the news was announced right as Laura Montez was being inaugurated, blurring the issue of who deserved the credit. President Montez did nothing to clarify the matter and, frankly, why would she? It’s not like she had anything else to brag about. It was not until the Washington Post ran a series of articles following the publication of the first edition of this book that my role was fully revealed and I finally got the credit I deserved for the greatest foreign policy triumph of the twenty-first century.
You’d think something like that would be a good thing to talk about in my book, right? You’d think that a book that was supposed to be about my presidency (even though it was actually mostly about my life before my presidency, because I ran out of time to write about the presidency thanks to the publisher’s endless brow-beating) would at a bare minimum include the most important thing I accomplished during said presidency?? But no. It’s not in there! Not a single mention! Zilch! Zippo!!
It wasn’t until word got back to me from several people who read the book that Tibet was missing that I learned of the error. Now, I suppose, I have to go back and read through the whole thing to find out what other mistakes are in there. I’m glad to have a chance to add the Liberation of Tibet to this, the second edition, but sorry that I’m not able to write in more detail, because, in an entirely justified act of righteous indignation, I fired the person responsible for the error, Mike McLintock, and wasn’t able to get him back here to fix his mess before the deadline for the second edition. I think we should be able to include a more comprehensive account in the third edition or, if not then, the fourth edition definitely. We will also be able to add any other missing information I discover when I go back and read the book when I have time.
In any event, I want to assure you that the person responsible has been punished, and if you’re thinking you can get your money back because the first edition wasn’t entirely perfect, my publisher is pretty sure you can’t.
* Despite what I just said about China, I have the utmost respect for its seemingly permanent president, Lu Chi-Jang. Though congenitally devious, like most Asians, he is not as bad as some. One can make a deal with Lu, and once the deal is made, he’s probably just as likely to stick to it as you are. It all depends on a million unpredictable factors, but there’s at least a chance he will at any rate.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
So many people helped with this book that it would be impossible to mention all of them. I feel like they should be mentioned, though, since upon rereading a few portions of it prior to publication, I have come to the conclusion that the book would probably have been a lot better without their help, and I think readers should know who is to blame. But, like I say, the list is long and it’s mostly people you’ve never heard of, and my publisher seems to think that it would be a lot to ask of potential purchasers to pay for a long list of names of people who give bad advice or have confusing, contradictory opinions. Personally, I would pay good money for a list like that because, if I’d had one, maybe I would never have hired these people in the first place. But this is one of many subjects upon which my editor, Greg Morehouse, and I disagree, and I get tired of arguing with him because he’s one of those people who becomes more cheerful the more he disagrees with you, and I have always found those kinds of people very hard to get a handle on.
I do feel I should thank Greg, though, for begging me to do the book in the first place and for his continued guidance along the way. As I say, we didn’t always agree, and I will believe to my dying day that the book I wanted to do, which would have been a detailed account of my early years, would have been much more interesting and, frankly, better, but he insisted that the book should be about my career in politics and, especially, as president. The result, for what it’s worth, you are holding in your hands. If you agree with me, though, that the other book, the one about my childhood that I didn’t get to write, would have been a lot better and more interesting, will you do me a favor and say so in a one-star review on Amazon? I’m told that that’s all these publishing people care about.
My longtime colleague Mike McLintock, familiar to many of you from his White House briefings when he was my press secretary, certainly deserves a mention for the assistance he gave me in reconstructing the events of my life and in recording my thoughts about those events. Funny story about Mike: It’s impossible for me to think of Mike without remembering the disgusting way he eats shrimp. In particular, I’m thinking of those kind of shrimp that have the tail still attached. Mike doesn’t just bite off the shrimp above the tail like a normal person, he kind of squeezes the tail to get all the shrimp meat and juices out and then chews up the tail shell in order to make sure that there’s nothing left. Shrimp tails are revolting under the best of circumstances, but a plate full of the ones that Mike has processed is something that you will never be able to forget. Picturing them now, they evoke nothing so much as the gray toenail clippings of old women who have let their toenails grow to the length of shrimp tails.
Here’s why having shrimp as your “problem food” is especially bad if you work for a politician: You get it everywhere. A plate full of shrimp with a bowl of cocktail sauce in the center is exactly the kind of “fake fancy” dish that’s served at banquets, fundraisers, and in green rooms across the country, including many places that are thousands of miles from the nearest live shrimp habitat. And Mike loves shrimp even more than he loves other kinds of free food. Whenever he would see a plate of shrimp, he would say, “Hey, shrimp!” or “All right, shrimp!” or “Oh, great, shrimp! I’m starving.” Hearing Mike say the word “shrimp” invariably makes my stomach heave, and then having to watch him as he stations himself next to the plate of shrimp and chain smokes them is something one simply can’t unsee.
I don’t particularly like or dislike shrimp, or at least, I didn’t until I saw Mike eat a few, but in those few seconds he ruined shrimp and, to some extent, all shellfish for me forever. So, thanks, Mike! Thanks a lot for that.
Finally, I definitely want to thank the one person who has never let me down, Richard Splett. Richard is the sort of whip-smart political “natural” who has a deep understanding of both people and politics. But never let that amiable exterior fool you. Inside, the man is a killer! Although Richard did not work directly on the book, I feel like the better parts of it were inspired by the transformative influence he has on pretty much everything just by virtue of his proximity.
Thank you, Richard. God bless you.
INDEX
alcohol
Ben Cafferty and
arguments
Amy was wrong
I was right
bad breath
Mike McLintock and
bestiality
Biddle, III, Howard
Blumfeld, Abe
book
dishonesty of
legal notice concerning
omissions in
reimbursement for
/>
Booth, Wendy
Boyle, Conrad
Bundy, Ted
Buttrick, Abraham
Central America
Centreville, Maryland
cheapness
childhood
animal dismembering in
boredom in
China
Christian evangelicals
Civil War
clothing
in House of Representatives
for inauguration
corporate law
honesty in
See also visualization
corruption
crack cocaine
cooking
names for
powder cocaine compared to
smell of
of voters
Davison, Kent
not a robot
possible robot
proof he’s a robot
debutante ball
escort for
sex at
disorderly conduct
Doyle, Andrew
senility of
weak p-ss stream of
drugs
See also crack cocaine
Eaton family. See father’s family
education
Derwerd hearings and
“nerd” in
of prisoners
sex and
See also Smith College
Emeku, Olara
employment
See also government employment
entitlement
ex-husband. See Meyer, Andrew
family. See father; father’s family; Meyer, Andrew; Meyer, Catherine; mother; mother’s family
father
fondness for
hunting with
father’s family (Eaton family)
against Native Americans
American arrival of
in American Revolution
in Civil War
crimes of
deaths in
impersonator in
Native Americans against
sex and
as slave purchase financing facilitators
Garner, John Nance
Golden Rule
government employment
business and
feeblemindedness in
Great Depression
hairstyles
horrible/delicious
House of Representatives
alcohol and
bad breath in
campaign for
clothing in
losers in
maybes in
misogyny and
“not cool” in
perks in
sex and
See also crack cocaine
Howe, Thomas, IV (Ziggy)
Hughes, Stuart
insanity of wife of
obesity and
resignation of
immigration
James, Tom
Crush on Selina Meyer
“wife”
jazz
Kennedy, John F.
Law & Order reruns
law school
corporate law after
lesbians
Longpole, Rod
Maldonado, Barbara
Maltby, Pierpont, and Blumfeld. See corporate law
Marshall, Porter
porn with
Mayflower
Mbaba, Joseph
McLintock, Mike
car of
shrimp eating by
Melville family. See mother’s family
Meyer, Andrew (ex-husband)
beauticians and
Catherine’s friends and
Catherine’s friend’s mothers and
Catherine’s roommates and
Catherine’s teachers and
daughter with
failures of
flight attendants and
hand models, attraction to
nurses and
pharmaceutical sales reps and
Ponzi schemes of
romance with
Scandinavian au pairs and
stewardesses and
Meyer, Catherine (daughter)
legal settlement with
therapy of
Meyer, Selina
Monroe, Sarah
Monteverde, Diego
Montez, Laura
fat
not pretty when you get up close
plastic surgery
Montez, Laura Cunningham
mother
arson and
cheapness of
drag queen as
hasty marriage of
marriages of
“noblemen” and
pay-off of
pharmaceuticals in
as slumlord
swindling by
Native Americans
Navy
“nerd”
O’Brien, William (“Bill”)
running mate of
thoughts about
orphans
panic attacks
persecution
political “natural”
popes
post-presidency
in corner
Meyer Fund in
presidential library for
president
advisors of
agenda of
blame related to
crises for
decision-making of
hostages and
life and death related to
nuclear war and
people-pleasing and
shopper compared to
See also White House
presidential campaign
big leagues of
media in
See also second presidential campaign
psychiatry
rapes
religion
restraining order
Richard, Splett, dedication
role model
romance
day-dreaming about
drugs and
with professor
rival in
stalking for
with Tadeusz
sacrifice
second presidential campaign
cyberattacks after
founding f-ckheads and
opponents in
press corps retards in
sex in
visualization in
Senate
being heard in
best ass in the
napping in
sh-t committees in
sex
at debutante ball
during second presidential campaign
education and
father’s family and
House of Representatives and
sexism
sex joke
sexual assault
shrimp, eating
Smith College
cheapness at
nude photos at
romance at
Splett, Richard, dedication
Supreme Court
Tadeusz
tax evasion
Andrew Meyer and
Tibet
credit for
vice presidency
brick wall in
sex joke and
warm p-ss compared to
wiseass on
See also Hughes, Stuart
visualization
fake aristocrats in
hunting in
jewels in
voters
weather
Westerbrook, Carlton
White House
beds in
as dump
swimming pools at
zoning board
s